B.Bird clones

Welcome! Glad you came over. I hope you offer these up at some point...

that looks like some clean work man! welcome 8)

Welcome aboard bbird! I wanna' hear those awesome looking boxes....

Tnx guys.....lot of nice people here.
Few words about my 2x73......As you know , market is full of very good products based on
Neve type preamps .Actually , I have a feeling that this is unique time for studio recording
equipment because, if we want to talk honestly, 90 percent of products are based or actually are real clones of golden era 50 , 60 and 70 designs.
So....there are two ways to recreate those classics......the easy or hard way.First is PCB based and reduce need for extreme wiring all the pieces and cards together....we don't talk about few dcm here...there are literally at least 5- 10 m if not more 22awg wire(Neve 1073). Because I want to avoid any possibility that changed topology or layout will affect sound in a bad way. I cloned all five 1073 cards in a very meticulous way.....line by line , curve by curve....days and days in Corel pointing vertex bezier curves in right direction.Second , I spotted NOS Mustard , Tropical Fish.....Corning resistors...even highly priced Marinairs.It sound almost perfect , probably better then many other that I tested ...but ...I notice that something is missing ....especially in the ultrasonics and overall liveliness...the same thing that is present in most of today products. 
So ...what the heck is going on...all those overpriced transformers , NOS parts, hand wiring.......and still not satisfied with results.
All in all , last thing that I was very naive to let it pass under the radar is the PSU.And that is because in every single preamp that I have ,used regulators are lm317 based.I remember how much simple zener diode bring magic to my 1176 blue stripe build....so I try same thing with Neve......man
I was blown away....the bloody thing start literally to sing.More ultrasonics , more pleasant saturation and after all more life in the sound.Next thing is that I recreate original vintage 336... PSU , and that was biggest step in perfect direction.Mojo thing.....Should I mention that after that I was experimenting with at least 5 different audiophile shunt and vintage PSU designs....bue bue LM317.
Because I am a fan of Great River nv preamp , I chose to add as a extra future , possibility to change output transistor from slow 2n3055 to much faster TIP4 which is used in GR NV1.So what that bring to table......fundament of classic N sound is here , but transients are faster and there are less mud in 300Hz area....3D perception is noticeably better (not so in your face sound), but sound is still smooth and saturated.On a front panel you can select from vintage mode (2n3055) to modern (tip4).

Haha ...yes to many tech words.I will try to make some valid AB tests VS vintage Neve and maybe Avedis or similar clone preamps.Also if you have some raw recording to share , I can run it through my EQP1-A (customer should pick it up in next few days) and post it here, it can be anything from drums OH or whole stem , to whole mix.Something with rich harmonic content would be preferable.

Cheers
Sasha

Any chance you could A/B your 1073 with a Great River? I'd love to hear this because, selfishly, I have a GR MP-500NV and its my favorite preamp to date and I know it well. Anyhow, great info and good luck!!

  Hi guys,

happy owner of Sasha's B.Bird 2x73ST here! :-) Glad to see that his work is presented in a right place for it.

  First of all, I'd like to thank Sasha for being such a person! I met him through his work, but I am happy that I earn a very good friend of mine. He is a great musician, great songwriter with really really good ideas. That was a first sign for me that I am on a right way. Don't get me wrong, but I think that an engineer has to be a good, experienced musician in order to go the right way for us, musicians.
  His work is extremely dedicated and passionate. As you can read above, he finds very rare components and wire them in authentic way. It was a pleasant surprise when I saw inside the 1073 preamp/eq module from '70s Neve BCM10 sidecar console, and comparing it side by side with his preamp, I realized that those cards are identical! When we pulled them out, I didn't recognize which is which, honestly.
If you wanna learn the essence of Neve sound, design and topology, he is the right guy. Also, because of that, when you look inside some of the clones from today's market, you realize very fast why some things are not happening in the sound you are creating. I will mention the most important one - the POWER SUPPLY! If we go back to meaning of word "analog", we immediately realize that the end of a chain depends from the beginning. His power supply is like from BCM10 sidecar, with enormous headroom in current and voltage. That was Rupert Neve's biggest concerns when he designed those devices.
   B.Bird has everything that a recording engineer/producer/musician/artist would like/expect to hear from his work. It has big body, precise details, serious punch, drive without affecting resolution, and rounded transients in most musical way. I must say that I was shocked, comparing it with other preamps, because it was a 30-40% of difference in a way of getting the final sound. When you choose the right instrument and right mic for the situation, it sounds like it was appropriately eq-ed and compressed, almost finished sound, finding its position in a song only with a fader. When I started working with it, i started learning why this preamp was, and still is, so popular. It helps you finish a song faster! :-) I must say that I didn't have those level of results with Neve clones on today's market, and also with some of today's AMS Neve products. Recording punchy drums with Neve-kind preamp - I heard stories about it, but I didn't know how to achieve it, until I tried B.Bird's 2x73ST. Earlier, everything was mushy, lazy, without detail, but when I put 2x73ST on Kick In and Snare Top close mics - I started laughing like a kid! It was a sound that I heard on thousands of records, body, punch, detail, drive, everything!
  ST stands for "switching transistor". There is a switch on a front panel which says "Vintage - Modern". In real life, there are two output transistors inside, a feature that you won't find on today's products. Whey you try it for a test, there is a small but significant difference, but when you start working on a project, I must say that it is a life saver! When you want to round transients of some modern, hairy, fast transient mic and put it in place in Pro Tools, Motorola 2n3055 output transistor (Vintage mode) will do the job for you. Also, whey you want to speed up some old Neumann large condensers, TIP4 output transistor (Modern mode) is here for you. Basically, for a serious recording engineer, two preamps in one.
  I can write until tomorrow about it, but it is better to hear your questions and feedback, I am here for you.

P.S. His EQP-1 eq is finished and on the way to our studio! I can't wait to put my hands on it!

Cheers,

Goran 

I will try to run small production, probably in january 2016 ....then it will be possible to send one demo unit to somebody from RGO...I will talk with John about that.

Me too. I'm in New York by jcoutu.

I am your polar opposite..

I never get shit down here 8)

cheers

Wiz

Not true, Cris from Federal sent me the Dizengoff D4 to demo.. so I should stop whining...